


The Good Guy

by FunkyinFishnet



Category: So You Think You Can Dance RPF
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Friendship, Friendship/Love, Hurt/Comfort, RPF, Season/Series 05
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-16
Updated: 2010-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:40:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/95077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FunkyinFishnet/pseuds/FunkyinFishnet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Evan feels out of his depth on the show. But dancing with Randi never stops being amazing. All he wants is for her to have reason to smile.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Good Guy

Getting into the Top 20 simultaneously breaks Evan's heart and makes happiness sort of explode so hard inside of him that it makes him light-headed and sick to his stomach. He hates that his going forward means Ryan's gone and it's pretty much all his fault and that there's cameras documenting all of it. He and Ryan both cry, but Ryan tells him to do it for both of them and to man up so he does. Or at least he tries.

The rest of the Top 20 are as excited as he is and he's squashed in the middle of this really diverse group, body-popping and ballroom and ballet and contemporary, really a lot of contemporary. No one dances like Evan.

Apparently, he's 'Broadway.' A whole new category. Which is weird and exciting and kind of lonely. He pushes that part far from his mind. He's here to dance the only way he knows how, and it's gotten him this far. He's doing something right. He holds tight to that.

Then he's paired with Randi. Beautiful, bouncy, flexible Randi. Randi who likes his style, loves it even, and doesn't see it as a disadvantage at all. Evan settles on 'adorable' as the perfect way to describe her. Ryan laughs his ass off down the phone.

"You're gone, man," is all he says, before laughing some more.

He's probably right. He usually is. Evan does think she's pretty amazing. But Randi is married and that's a line Evan would never cross. His mom would kill him for even thinking it.

So they dance, step by step and joking for the cameras about the perils of dancing with married women. And they find a rhythm together. They mesh. Randi can adapt easily to each style and Evan knows how to leave his soul on the stage. It works. It's a rush of chemistry and connection and incredible fun. It's better and more comfortable than Evan thought was possible to dance with a relative stranger.

He loves to watch her dance. He loves even more to dance with her. He feels ridiculously blessed.

Jason, plugged into his iPod with his legs dangling off the porch, laughs knowingly as Evan covertly watches Randi talk on the phone to her husband. Maybe not as covertly as he thought. Evan grins back, eyes crinkling. He knows he's more than a little hopeless.

Then Caitlin's calling out and Jason's scrambling to his feet with his own grin. Only it's not hopeless. Not even a little.

Evan keeps watching.

*

The judges are not always thrilled with Evan's work, his perceived lack of edge and sharpness – his attitude is just different, that's all. Randi gets protective of him. She smiles on camera but holds his hand tight, squeezing his fingers whenever a blow comes. The crowd is awesome, like nothing Evan's ever heard before. That's more than a little weird. Dazzling and euphoric, but weird.

"You're amazing out there," Randi tells him, as they hunker backstage, pressing cool water bottles to flushed fever-bright skin.

"Just trying to keep up with Unitard Girl," he replies with an easy smile, because smiling is always easy around Randi.

He hates seeing her unhappy. Sometimes, after she's called home, her eyes aren't smiling at all and she tries to laugh but it doesn't quite work somehow. So he offers her that expression that always seems to lift her and she curls up against him on the couch, head resting beatifically against his shoulder.

"You're a good guy."

Her voice is sleepy and sad and grateful. Evan holds himself and her carefully. There's the smell of stringy pasta and deep fried tomatoes left over from dinner. Evan kind of wants to not wash his clothes.

Yeah, he's a good guy. He wants to slam his head against the wall.

*

Their last dance is……it's not really their last dance. They could end up paired together again. But it's billed as their last dance. Evan still sees her in the evenings and the mornings, fishing her cellphone out from the side of the couch, hearing her sing as she dries her hair, and seeing her laughing with Jeanette. But it's not the same, not at all.

Ryan sounds concerned down the phoneline. It's a tone Evan hasn't heard for a long time.

"Careful, bro," Ryan tells him, warmth and worry and affection like he knows tangling in his voice. "Just be careful, all right?"

Then Randi is gone.

It's a real shock. She's crying after the video package and the music drowns out everything else, the stage swarming with dancers. Evan tries to get to her, but he's numb and struggling. It's not until they're in the cars afterwards that he gets his arms around her and he can smell her laundry powder. Her crying dampens his shirt.

"At least I'll get to see my dog," she manages, tears and relief warring with something else.

Evan can feel something edging up his throat that he really should keep locked down tight. So he squeezes her shoulder and keeps really quiet. Apparently it's what she needs because she doesn't say a word either. It's nice, complete even. But there's something big in between them and Evan won't force the words out, no way. It's not fair.

*

They talk via cellphone a few times in the days and weeks that follow. Randi sounds distracted and dry and Evan feels himself slipping and worried, unable to change her tone at all. So he starts sending pictures to her phone instead, dorky ones of Philip popping, Caitlin and Jason snuggling together backstage when they think no one can see them, Nigel's exaggerated bug-eyes when Mary screams happily, Cat posing with Kayla and Jeanine. Stuff to make Randi smile. He gets smiley face texts back and thinks that maybe he made the right choice.

*

The weeks seem to speed up and suddenly, it's finale day. Evan feels breathless and very small, standing in the middle of the stage and looking out into the empty auditorium. And yet, with all the huge stuff about to happening, the single thought that's beating in time with his rapid heartbeat is _I get to see Randi today_.

To most people, that's a serious screw-up in priorities.

The world will be out there watching him. His family and friends and incredibly, his fans. He has fans. This could be his big break, even if he doesn't win. It could change his life forever and he's hungry for that, for his style to not be seen as old-fashioned, for it to break through into mainstream popularity again, for people to see how amazing and fun it is. Having Randi there makes the whole thing shine a little brighter, makes it mean even more.

His thoughts are still spinning when there's a pair of small toned arms suddenly wrapping around his middle and a familiar giggle erupting into his shoulder. She can probably hear how fast his heart is going, oh God. He turns and there she is, looking a little more tanned, her hair a little blonder, and there's something surprisingly sad hiding in her eyes behind the happy giddiness.

"I am so proud of you," she says, quiet and real into his shirt. "I've missed you."

It's only after he's hugged her, spinning her round once and gaining a shriek and a laugh, and pulled back that he notices she's not wearing her wedding ring.

His stomach immediately drops and there's a lot of different scenarios running through his head and none of them are fun for Randi. It explains so much. Before he can reach/say/think anything, Mia arrives, excited to see them and rehearse their contemporary routine that's been picked as one of the judges' favourites. Of course, it's the one that means Evan gets to stare at Randi's ass the whole time.

Then when rehearsal's up, he's yanked away for the next one. The show's become an endurance race as well as a dance contest. Evan tries hard to tuck Randy's sad eyes and bare hand into a place in his head for later. He tries hard.

Dancing with the other girls has never stopped being strange. Kayla is light on her feet and slides between styles effortlessly. But there's a steel beneath her softness that jars. Evan's too used to Randi being huggable sweetness through and through. When Kayla kisses him at the end of their jive, she's making a point.

Jeanine enjoys the violence of their jazz routine. Her smile is a little crazed, but she laughs and so does he and it's a lot of fun. She's all chaos as they rehearse but when they perform it on the night, there's a total control to her movements that's incredible. She's dynamite.

His routine with Brandon exorcises a whole lot of anger. He doesn't feel like he fits into the mood or the jacket at all. But that's the point. You have to make it fit, to be in command and be comfortable. He punches like he means it and grits his teeth. Brandon wears the dance easily and rolls confidently through it. Evan fights to keep up.

He grabs Randi's hand without thinking too hard as they rush on stage, ready to perform. She adjusts his hat and he wants to say how gorgeous she looks in that short silk dress, that he loves her hair just a little bit more when it's curly, that this dance frustrates and enthrals him in the craziest ways, that she's always deserved so much more. But then Cat's announcing them and Randi lets go, taking her place in the spotlight before Evan joins her. He's breathless again, and it's exactly right.

*

Then it's all over, Jeanine wins and wow, they all get to go on tour together. There's confetti raining down and Cat is laughing, trying to dance like Ade's teaching her and there's music pounding through the speakers and it's still not enough to drown out the crowd's continually hysterical cheering. Evan thinks it's a sound that's going to stay ringing in his ears for a really long time.

The first thing he does once he finally gets off stage is hug his family, reassuring them that he's fine, really, and maybe only Ryan completely believes him. Then Evan heads back for a shower and the tiny amount of privacy that he really needs for a moment. He's almost at the dressing room door when he spots Randi. She's still got confetti in her hair and when she looks up, there's that glint in her eyes again that he really can't walk away from.

He can only imagine what Ryan would say to him right now.

"You did awesome," Randi tells him. "Really, did you hear the crowd?"

"Yeah, it was crazy. I still can't really believe it," he admits, settling down beside her.

He peels his shoes off, sighing at the relief of the cool floor against his aching feet. There's silence between them and it's only slightly awkward, or maybe Evan's only imagining that. He's trying really hard not to stare at her empty ring finger. He's glad that everybody else seems to be ignoring them, crammed a little too close together in a hardly private hallway.

"It's been a crazy few months," Randi says softly, her voice cracking on the precarious edge of tears, like she's been there a lot lately and is determined to not go there again.

Evan swallows down all of his questions, and he's got so many as well as the completely inappropriate heat flaring up that he's absolutely not to going to act on. Instead, he reaches and carefully brushes the confetti out of her curls. Her eyes track the movement and then her fingers reach for his, twining them together tightly. Like she needs an anchor, she needs something, maybe even him.

She takes a breath and her shoulders relax a little. Evan smiles questioningly – are you okay? And Randi smiles back, honest and fond and even a little shy, and brings their joined hands up to press against her heart. He can feel it trembling.

Evan is overwhelmed by that sensation again – heartbreak and elation, for her and for him, for them both. He has the urge to dance, and he wants to take her with him.

_-the end_


End file.
